


love will tear us apart

by laireshi



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel 616, New Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Soulmates, Superior Iron Man, hickmanvengers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 07:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2613038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Soulmates don't exist</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love will tear us apart

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for beta to [missbecky](http://archiveofourown.org/users/missbecky/pseuds/missbecky) :) Also for all the discussions to [runningondreams](http://archiveofourown.org/users/runningondreams) and [Comicsohwhyohwhy](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Comicsohwhyohwhy/pseuds/Comicsohwhyohwhy)!
> 
> The prompt and warnings are at the end.

It's easy to sign up when he knows whatever they do to him, it won't kill him. It's easy to enlist when he knows he won't die.

(Dying is such a weird concept, too, something straight from myths and legends. Everyone lives their lives, and then they're gone; it is death, but it is not something to cry over, not really, just a natural order of things.

Soulmates can kill you, but, well, they're such a rare thing anyway.)

Steve volunteers for the super serum program, and afterwards he finally can help.

The front in Europe is _hell_. The Nazis are working on finding a way to kill people, and Steve will never forget the faces of the victims of their experiments, even after he freed them. He gets shot in the chest, and it's a brief moment of pain before everything gets back to how it used to be, and he's hurling his shield, knocking enemy soldiers out. Someone loses his arm and walks unsteadily, pale, and he too won't die.

(Steve's briefly back in the States when he sees a headline that for once has nothing to do with war, a headline screaming of a murder victim –

A guy shot his wife before trying to kill himself. He lives, and she _is_ dead, and the dry comment says, _It must have been true love_.)

Steve's safe in the war, because he really doubts his soulmate is out there, fighting on the wrong side and trying to kill him.

He's not sure what to expect when his plane goes down.

***

In the world he wakes up to, superheroes are needed more than ever. Injuries that aren't dangerous enough to kill unless they are inflicted by a soulmate leave civilians in comas, paralysed; hospitals always too full.

(Steve learns people are even more wary of true love and soulmates: after all, who wants another person to have that much power over them? It's becoming more and more just another legend, and the occasional news of a car accident where one spouse kills another shakes everyone.

Soulmates are dangerous. They shouldn't exist.)

Iron Man says his armour keeps him healthy, and Steve's not sure what he means, but he never asks. Tony Stark explains it to him, years later, and Steve has to stop himself from reaching out to touch and check Tony is safe. He can't die, but being trapped in his body must be his worst nightmare.

Steve isn't sure why he hasn't died of old age, but he's glad to see this new century, to look at the future shining clearly in Tony's eyes.

(Tony drinks like he thinks if he's committed enough, alcohol will be able to kill him, like if he pretends the bottle is his true love, it'll work, and Steve hates it and can't do a thing.)

***

When Steve kisses Tony, Tony smiles darkly. “Dangerous,” he says.

“I'm not afraid to love you,” Steve answers.

Tony laughs. “Soulmates don't exist,” he says.

Steve doesn't care for his words, because Tony has grabbed a fistful of his shirt and hasn't let go, and his eyes are desperate, like he wants Steve to back off and can't deal with the thought of it. “You mentioned it,” Steve says clearly, “and I don't care.”

He kisses Tony again, and Tony melts into him.

Steve never wants to let him go.

***

_Soulmates don't exist_ , Steve remembers as Iron Man punches him, as Steve hits him back, as he uses Vision to disable his armour and throws him down.

_Soulmates don't exist_ , so Steve is safe to hit him with the shield, shatter his faceplate, _soulmates don't exist_ , so Steve raises his shield up –

Civilians stop him, and Steve never learns if everything was a lie –

But it had to be. Tony Stark isn't his friend, much less a soulmate.

(It's Sharon who kills Steve later, and it's wrong, because it was a short fling years ago, they stayed friends, and –

She hasn't _really_ killed him, of course; the time bullet making sure of it.)

***

“She killed you,” Tony says anyway when they face each other again.

“She didn't,” Steve replies. “And I told you once before, Tony – _I don't care about soulmates_.”

That Tony seems to so very much despite all his words to the contrary, well – 

It's Tony. Steve wouldn't have him any other way.

(He just wishes Tony would believe him that they could love each other without being soulmates, that the word doesn't mean anything, that Tony means the world to Steve, that he doesn't have to be anyone's soulmate to be important to them.)

***

Tony sometimes wakes up at night, a scream on his lips, and Steve calms him down. More and more often, Tony doesn't let him.

“What if . . .” he starts saying one night, and never finishes.

The next day he tells Steve he can't do it, they can't be together.

It hurts, and Steve never learns what Tony tried to say that night, but he can guess.

***

Steve isn't sure how, but they manage to stay friends. There's less touches between them, but they're almost as close as they've always been anyway. Steve comes back to the Avengers, because he never could stay away for long. Tony gives him his home, again.

Maybe it is for the best to keep each other at arm's length.

***

They start another team, and of course they do it together.

Steve wants to ask Tony to try again, to give them another chance, to forget about the past and focus on the future – isn't that supposed to be Tony's job, anyway? The futurist?

But Tony's eyes are dark in a way they've never been before, and when he looks at Steve there's guilt in them. Steve doesn't understand it. Tony has never done anything to explain it, and he can't be still going on about the war, can he?

(It's Tony Stark, of course he can.)

***

Steve remembers, and he isn't sure if it could hurt more even if he did ask Tony out again. He's glad he hasn't.

(As if it makes a difference.)

_Soulmates don't exist_ , right, and isn't it the final proof?

It takes Steve a long time to get up and assemble the team.

( _Why_ , he wants to ask Tony and never does.)

***

It's a shock, though maybe it shouldn't be, when Steve learns that Tony _hasn't_ broken, that Tony never did destroy another planet.

(Does it matter, if he gave Namor the tools to?)

It's a bigger shock when Reed Richards shows up and asks for help, because Tony – Tony now is going to do it, because, of course, Tony Stark now is not the Tony Stark everyone knew.

Steve's not sure if it was magic or mind control that made Tony do the things he had done before he disappeared for months without a trace –

But he's back, and he supports the Cabal.

That's not Tony, Steve thinks viciously. That wasn't Tony back in San Francisco, drinking, cruel to everyone, and it's not Tony now.

(Steve isn't sure why he believes that after everything Tony's done to him.)

He goes to the incursion site and sees Tony setting up equipment.

“Steve,” he says with a bright smile. “You want to see the fireworks, I take it.” He gestures wildly around. “What the Cabal was doing . . . Useful, but they just lacked style.”

_Soulmates don't exist_ , Steve thinks and attacks.

Tony's graceful in this new armour, more so than he'd been years earlier with the Bleeding Edge or Extremis one. He's fast and strong, and Steve matches him hit for hit.

It's not Tony, so it's easy to fight him. Easy to break the armour. Easy to hit him, as if Steve could make him see sense like that.

Easy to raise his shield, when Tony still aims the repulsors at him, easy to hit the RT in his chest straight on.

_Soulmates don't exist_ , but Tony falls down as the node shatters, and he grabs at his chest, fighting for breath.

_Soulmates don't exist_ , but Tony stops moving, and when Steve falls to his knees next to him and searches for his pulse, there's nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> I read a post on tumblr, ages ago, that said "au where the only person who can kill you is your soulmate". I don't have a link anymore, sorry.  
> Character death, Tony.


End file.
